


And You Cling to Every Thread

by bloodofpyke



Category: Captain America (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 09:27:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Bucky survives; set post-movie</p>
            </blockquote>





	And You Cling to Every Thread

The first word he says is _fuck._ Spits it really, the light searing in his eyes, the letters forcing their way through his teeth falling onto the ground with a splatter of blood and what looks like a bit of molar.

The second word is _Steve._ And it’s more of a groan than anything, a groan with one hand on his side and the other on his head because _damn it all to hell what happened to him?_ No one answered him, but he could see them all, ringed around his bed, clipboards in hand. “Steve?” he repeated, and his voice sounded clearer, sounded less pained. “Where is he? I need to punch the son of a bitch.”

And then all the lab coats and clipboards were looking down, and it felt like his heart was dropping into his stomach, or leaping into his throat, or _something_. “Where is he?” he asked again, and this time it was a demand, a demand through clenched teeth, and his hands were already balling into fists, the skin barely even scabbed over, because he knew, oh he knew, and he wasn’t ready for his world to be broken. “Stupid kid,” he muttered, nails digging into his skin, heart beating in his ears. “Too dumb to run away from a fucking fight.” But the words were a whisper now, and the world looked blurred, frayed at the edges.

The last word he thinks before he blacks out is _Peggy._

***

It’s hard, he thinks later, living in a world without Steve.

Brooklyn becomes impossible when he’s back on his feet; Steve’s ghost following him, walking in his footsteps, pointing to that alleyway where that happened or this street corner where this happened, and he can’t take it. Can’t take it, doesn’t _want_ to take it, just wants to go back, back to 1944, to a time when Steve was still fucking here.

“Dumb fucking kid,” he breathes between his teeth but it’s bitter, it’s frayed, and he’s already crashing and falling, throat burning, knuckles bruising on the pavement.

He runs into her a few days later, and it’s awkward, it’s stilted, and Steve’s name is spinning on a thread between them but when it’s all said and done, he’s made plans to meet her for drinks later that night.

He doesn’t mention how red her eyes look, how her knees are bruised and dirtied like she’s been kneeling on the ground, and she doesn’t mention how his eyes keep sliding to his left, like he’s looking for someone that isn’t there.

***

The bar is dim and empty, and she’s sitting alone when he gets there. “Hey,” he says, and he tries to smile but it comes out more as a grimace, as a mask, and he stops trying, sits down instead and orders a drink.

“He was my best friend,” he tells her a few drinks in, the beer bottles cluttering the bar around him, like this is a competition, like he’s already pulled ahead.

“We had a date,” she answers, and her voice is soft and that, he thinks, is worse.

They’re silent for a moment, and he can’t take it, _he can’t take it_ , and he’s leaning over and asking what she’s doing in Brooklyn. “Isn’t there a war going on?” he laughs; the war is all but over, the papers already proclaiming it a victory, but for them it will always feel as if they’re still fighting.

She barely smiles, only murmurs something about paying her respects, about getting closure. “Or trying to,” she says into her glass of scotch, and he glances at her over the brim of his bottle and thinks again that world is unspeakably cruel.

***

They’re kissing. He doesn’t remember how it happened, doesn’t remember the stumbled walk to the hotel she’s staying at, but they’re kissing and it’s enough, somehow.

It’s enough, but it’s desperate and it’s frenzied and he’s already wondering if somewhere Steve is watching this, if somewhere Steve is spitting out curses through tight lips. But that’s not Steve, and this isn’t him, and it doesn’t matter anyway because he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s _gone._

When he kisses her again, it’s half a bite and she cries out, her nails catching on his chest.

His name hangs between them anyway, carved into the air, into their skins, like a rope tying them closer and closer, like a prayer better left unsaid. And they grab at it, the both of them, neither wanting to be left with nothing, with only a fading memory ghosting through their fingers.

Later, when they’re twisted and tangled up in each other, when the moonlight is tracing patterns on the sheets, he’s still awake. Still awake, and looking at her and not looking at her, and his hands are shaking. He can still feel Steve in the room, he thinks, and he wonders if he could hear him, if he tried hard enough.


End file.
